


Being Human

by Yoru_The_Rogue



Series: DC Yoru'verse: The Smith Siblings Trilogy [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Animated Series, DC Animated Universe, DC Extended Universe, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, OC-centric, OC-heavy, Other, Personal Headcanon 'Verse, Team as Family, The DC Yoru-Verse, but i canon blend, hinted shipping in the background but it's not important to the story, i canon-blend like there's no tomorrow, i have a weakness for clone characters okay?, mostly rooted in the Timmverse, paraquel, this is some self-indulgent shit, will edit here and there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-24 04:26:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15622509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yoru_The_Rogue/pseuds/Yoru_The_Rogue
Summary: In this tie-in toCourting Vipers, when Leslie's elder brother Tony and family friend Anthea Beauregard accidentally befriend the 'Krypclonian' Galatea, all three wind up with bigger problems than they anticipated. Still, perhaps out of it all, the three of them might learn a thing or two about the circumstances that make a person family, how personal choice and our actions define us, and just what exactly it means to be human.





	1. Angels Don't Need Shotguns

**Author's Note:**

> This ties in with chapter 8 of _Courting Vipers_. It isn't necessary to read that fic in order to fully understand this one, as the plotlines tend to be separate, but if you would like more context, feel free to check that one out as well.

Sometimes Anthony Smith felt like an absolutely horrible brother.  It wasn’t that he actually _was_ a horrible brother; in fact, he was quite a peace-maker among his siblings and highly compassionate and tuned in to the feelings and needs of his family.  But when he let someone down, it hit him pretty hard, and he wasn’t one to let go of that easily.  And most recently, he had let down his younger sister, Leslie.

“If you keep agonizing over it, you’re going to give yourself wrinkles, Tony,” a voice to his right spoke in a rather condescending way as he surrendered his keys to let the valet park his Hummer.  He turned and glared down at his elder brother, Steven, who was busy brushing back his hair in a somewhat vain manner.  It was rather rich of his brother, Tony felt, to be making casual remarks about agonizing over upsetting their sister.  After all, Tony wouldn’t have let Leslie down and spilled her secrets in the first place if Steven hadn’t decided to be an absolute dickwad as usual.

“Right,” Tony snorted, rolling his eyes as they climbed the steps to the Beauregard manor.  “What a tragedy it would be if I had frown lines before I’m thirty.”

Steven shot him a dirty look, curling his upper lip in a sneer and picking up his pace, flouncing right past the people at the door trying to greet him and looking for the entire world a picture-perfect stereotypical upper-crust snob.  Tony sighed, hooking his thumbs into his jean pockets and giving the girls at the door a half-hearted greeting in response.  This wasn’t turning out to be the best week, and he didn’t expect attending a party to celebrate Daniel Beauregard “making alien contact” would really improve things much.  As he was ushered toward the main ballroom, he glanced around for some sign of his sister, who had left the house to go to the party much earlier, but he already was willing to guess that Leslie had slipped away to hang out and gossip with Stephanie Beauregard.

“Right this way please, Mister Smith,” someone said genially.  He allowed himself to be herded to the ballroom, reflecting on how odd it felt to be called Mister Smith, how he wished he could just disappear, and that he felt it was slightly inappropriate for Daniel Beauregard to be throwing a celebration because he had been made some sort of go-between ambassador for aliens visiting the Earth.  The inside of the room managed to distract him from those thoughts, brightly lit and full of the buzz of chatter as it was.  Many of his family’s associates, friends, and contacts from the country club were there, including—if his eyes weren’t deceiving him—Bruce Wayne, looking slightly disgruntled, and… was that _Oliver Queen_ at the buffet table?

Tony hadn’t meandered too far in before he found himself giving brief “hellos” and waves to different people he was passing, just wandering aimlessly and trying to find a good spot to squeeze free of all the other bodies.  But there were so many attendees milling around, eager to gossip or congratulate the Beauregards, that his chances of finding an open spot were slim.  He glanced back at the buffet, which had been wedged up against the outside-facing wall, blocking off all the windows and doors leading onto the veranda.  Surely it was a fire hazard…

A fruit-kebab abruptly vanished under the table of _h’or douvres_ platters and Tony stared, trying not to think of gremlins.  A cheese kebab quickly followed, evidently making a bid for freedom while nobody was looking.  Muttering hasty apologies to those around him, he elbowed his way to the buffet table, looking for the disappearing kebabs.  Within seconds a small, dainty hand appeared over the table’s edge, feeling around for a can of grape soda, and Tony had to stifle a snicker as he realized who the culprit must be.

“Here you go,” he kept his voice down as he pushed a soda within reach of the searching fingers, which closed around the can in something like greedy triumph.

“Thanks!” a small, muffled voice issued from under the table as the hand started to pull the soda away.  But a second later the hand froze, palpable suspicion emanating from its owner.  Slowly a head of dark red hair rose above the table’s edge, accompanied by a pair of bespectacled blue eyes seeking him out.

“Hey, kiddo.”  He couldn’t entirely resist the urge to smile.  Anthea Beauregard raised a suspicious eyebrow at him, but she relaxed visibly in his presence.

“Tony?  I didn’t expect to see you here,” she remarked, her eyes doing a quick sweep of the huge room before she added, “Where’s Leslie?  I see Steven.”

His face fell guiltily.

“Probably ran off with your sister somewhere in order to avoid me, I think,” he confessed, snatching up a can of grape soda for himself and turning it over in his hands.  “I sort of got her royally grounded.  Didn’t mean to, but what’s done is done, y’know.”

A corner of the teenager’s mouth twitched down, though whether in a frown of disappointment or a wince of sympathy, Tony wasn’t sure.

“So what’s up with you, short-stop?” he asked, popping the tab on his soda to take a sip.  “Whatcha lurking for?  Up to anything at all?”

“Mom says I _have_ to be here,” Anthea grumbled moodily.  “Because this is a big day for Dad and the whole family needs to be here to show support and socialize.  She _knows_ I hate these things.”

He gave a small nod.  “So that’s the official order of business.  Then what are you unofficially doing?”

“Sneaking snacks and texting some friends to keep sane.”

A voice called out over the crowd just then, saying the youngest Beauregard’s name as if they could sense she was being truant.  Tony glanced around, unsurprised to see Amelia Beauregard looking around like a hawk for her daughter.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anthea start to duck under the table again.  Hopefully her mother hadn’t noticed, but he knew the kid wasn’t going to chance it.  Impulsively he moved around to the opposite side of the table where she was hiding, and made a show of acting interested in the contents of the punch bowl.  Within moments Mrs. Beauregard had glided over, a dangerous glint in her eye.

“Ah, Anthony!  You wouldn’t have happened upon my daughter, perchance?” she asked the moment her gaze fell on him.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he answered with an innocent shrug.  “Which one?”

“Anthea,” she spat out the name in a frustrated huff, glaring up and down the length of the buffet.  “The Marians are here, and at the very least it wouldn’t kill the girl to talk to their twins for a while.”

Tony glanced down for a split second and caught sight of Anthea mouthing the words “yeah it would”, before offering her mother an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, Mrs. Beauregard.  I’ll let you know if I see her, though.”

She gave him a grateful smile in return.  “Thank you, Anthony.  You’re becoming such a helpful gentleman,” she remarked before slipping away to resume her hunt.  It wasn’t until she was half-swallowed by the crowd that Anthea dared to peek over the edge of the table again.

“Helpful gentleman, huh?” Tony distinctly heard the teen murmur.  “She’s got no clue.”

He took another sip of the grape soda, grabbed a plate, and started loading food on it to look like he was actually hanging around the buffet for a legit reason.  He kept his voice low as he conversed with Anthea.  “You’re welcome, kiddo.  Least I could do.  You holding up alright with all this?”

She winced up at him, hunching her shoulders uncomfortably, and then looked down at her cell phone, mumbling under her breath.  He looked down at her pityingly, his guilt over letting Leslie down prickling at him.  Really, was Anthea’s situation all that different?  It wasn’t a well-kept secret that the Beauregards had gotten _more_ picky and paranoid about security details since Stephanie had been accepted as an orderly at Arkham.  Chances were high a lot of Anthea’s freedoms were getting more and more restricted.  And now here she was, forlornly tapping away at her cell and hiding under a buffet table to avoid interacting with her parents’ socialite friends.

_Maybe I can’t make up for my mistake with my sister right now,_ a little voice in his head remarked, _but I can at least try to make this a little less gloomy for someone as close as family._

“You need some fresh air?” he said, raising an eyebrow and giving her a sympathetic look.  She glanced up from her phone and threw suspicious glances around the ballroom.

“I’m technically not supposed to go anywhere without security or a bodyguard escorting me,” she answered hesitantly.

“What and you always obey that?  You’re one weird teenager in that case.”

“You should meet some of my friends.”

“Point taken,” Tony chuckled, unable to hold back a grin.  “Come on, I’ll go with you.  This party’s boring anyway, no offense to your family.  If they get pissed that you pulled a disappearing act, I’ll take the blame for being a bad influence.”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and hopeful.

“You mean it?” She asked, unable to mask the joy in her voice.

“Cross my heart,” he answered with a wink.  Anthea beamed, grinning up at him, and grabbed his wrist with an insistent tug.

“C’mon!” she hissed.  “If we can sneak out onto the deck, it’s a short jump down and we can go to the parking spots to find your Hummer.”

“Alright,” he agreed with a nod and a glance around to be sure no one was looking in their direction, setting the plate and his soda back down on the table.  “If you think that’ll work, let’s go for it.”

They exchanged a brief nod and the young teen gently pushed one of the doors to the deck open, slipping through it as quick as she could.  Tony took one glance back at the rest of the room, hesitating.  He caught sight of both Daniel and Amelia Beauregard engaged in different conversations, and a surge of irritation shot through him.

_Great parenting._ He thought wryly.  With a shake of his head, he darted out onto the deck.  Anthea was already halfway over the edge and gestured for him to hurry up before she dropped down to the ground below.  He rushed over, worried she might have gotten hurt, but a glance down showed it wasn’t a far drop and she was waiting for him to jump down.  Swinging over the side, he hit the ground and followed Anthea at a brisk trot, allowing her to lead him to where the valets had all parked the visitors’ cars.

“You find your Hummer, I’ll get the keys!” Anthea whispered before darting away.  He wanted to call after her that they should switch but the kid was a lot quick than he gave her credit for.  Really, it seemed a little self-defeating to have her get the keys if she wanted to avoid being caught in an attempt to sneak out for a breather.  Still there wasn’t much Tony could do now apart from looking for his car, so he set off between the rows of vehicles, hooking his thumbs into his pockets in an attempt to look casual.  There wasn’t much searching to be done though, considering how starkly the Hummer stood out, and he made a beeline for it as he waited for the teen to show up with his keys.

“Tony!” he heard her voice after a few anxious minutes.  Turning, he found her running pell-mell with one hand aloft and jangling metallically.  She beamed with delight and excitement as she came near and caught her breath.

“Come-on-come-on-let’s-go!”

“Hey calm down there, Taz!  Take shotgun!”

With a grin she tossed the keys for him to catch and ran around to the passenger side door.  Shaking his head, Tony gave a good-natured smile and opened the driver’s side door, unlocking the vehicle.  In moments the two were strapped in and driving away from the Beauregard mansion as discreetly as one could manage in a bulky green SUV.

“Seriously Tony, thank you _so_ -so much!” Anthea sighed in relief once they had made it out past the gates and taken to the private drives.  “It’s like being in some surreal dream or something.  All everybody sees is the pretty glitzy bit and nothing else because they don’t want to acknowledge the ugly part’s there too.”

Something in the teen’s words prompted an image in Tony’s mind.  Turning off the road that would lead them back into the populated edges of Gotham, he decided to voice the idea.

“Kind of like some really fancy dog collar?” he suggested.  “Trick it out to look as expensive, classy and gorgeous as you want, but a collar is still a collar.  It’s going to chafe and limit anything or anyone that wears it.”

“Exactly like that,” she murmured in a melancholy tone.  He glanced over at her, frowning in sympathy.  He wasn’t privy to what might happen behind closed doors with the Beauregards but he had long suspected that things weren’t ideal with the family.  And if Leslie’s little snippets of insight from her friendship with Stephanie were anything to go by, then things recently had started getting worse.  Looking at the distant, unhappy expression on the youngest Beauregard’s face, Tony found himself wondering just _how_ bad it was getting.

“Hey… uh, listen Taz…” he started hesitantly.  She glanced up with a mellow blink and a mildly curious, attentive air.  “Look, I’m not super-smart or anything, and I didn’t go to shrink school.  Giving advice—good advice, that is—isn’t exactly something I’m really skilled with.  But if you ever need anyone to talk to who’s not going to be super-judgmental about it or make a big deal out of it or rat you out for anything you’ve gotta get off your chest… you can always talk to me about it.”

“Even though you got Leslie royally grounded?”

He gave a small wince.  “That wasn’t intentional.  Wasn’t supposed to happen at all.  Steven ran his mouth and when our parents backed me into a corner to demand an explanation, I couldn’t exactly lie about what I knew,” he confessed.  “So I didn’t mean to rat her out; and if it had been totally in my hands, I wouldn’t have.”

He saw her reflection nod in the windshield a bit.

“Fair enough,” she agreed, sounding reassured as she smiled gratefully.  “Thanks, Tony.”

“Hey, it’s no big.  So where do you want to chillax, Taz?”

“Well, all the parks are mostly closed after dark,” she replied.  “You okay with going to a café?”

He had to wonder for an instant which cafés might still be open, but he never got the chance to answer the question.  In the moonlight shining down on the road he saw a flash of white, and when his headlights reflected off of it, the shape was vaguely human.

“What the—!!”

His foot came down hard on the brake pedal as he jerked the steering wheel to the left.  The Hummer went off-road dozens of yards and curved to the side before finally coming to tough stop that left them both reeling in their seats.  Tony tried to draw in a deep breath and found his arms and shoulders were shaking slightly.  A glance down evidenced his grip on the steering wheel was white-knuckled, and a look at Anthea showed she was also clutching whatever she could for dear life.

“You okay, kid?” he asked, taking small relief in the fact his voice was rather steady.  She seemed to calm down a bit and nodded her head, giving a small swallow.

“I’ll be fine.  But you saw it, right?!”

“You saw it too?!” Tony asked in disbelief.  It had happened so fast and his reaction had been so reflexive, he was certain he’d caught her completely off-guard before she’d seen anything.

“Yeah, it looked like a ghost!” she replied, eyes wide and face pale.  He looked from her to the rearview mirror and jumped.

The white humanoid shape was approaching the Hummer.

“Tony what’s—” Anthea’s voice died abruptly when she craned around to look out the back windshield and she went very still.  With a swallow of his own, the young man put the vehicle in park as he watched the progress of the figure drawing closer and closer to them.

“Taz,” he murmured. “There’s a hockey stick lying on the floor under the backseat.”

She needed no further hints, sinking lower in her seat as she groped around for said sports equipment.  In the rearview mirror the figure drew closer, and Tony held his breath.  If Anthea ended up hurt or in danger, this was all his fault.  What had he been _thinking_?

The person in white turned out to be a woman and the realization didn’t exactly hit Tony until she had nearly slipped out of view in the mirror.  She was walking around to the driver’s side door, and guiltily he understood he must have frightened this stranger out for an evening jog by suddenly swerving to avoid her.

“Great,” he muttered under his breath, hanging his head.

There was a small tap on his window and he mechanically pushed the button to lower it as he turned to face the woman.  Yet upon looking up he found himself at a temporary loss for words.

She was around his age with neatly cropped blonde hair that gave her a mature look, balancing out the soft, rounded features of her face.  Her white clothes weren’t a runner’s track suit and sneaks like he’d anticipated, but gloves, boots, and a leotard with a rather strategically-placed opening in the fabric to allow a generous view of her cleavage.  Hardly a fitting ensemble for anyone out and about for an evening stroll.  Her eyes were a bright blue-green, almost startlingly so considering the dim light and finely-shaped, firehouse-red lips quirked up in a smile of vague amusement.

“Sorry,” she said in a light voice.  “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I-it’s cool,” Tony responded quickly, trying to wave a dismissive hand.  “We’re alright.  I just didn’t want to hit you.”

Her smile widened.  “I would have been fine,” she said in an eerily calm, confident way.  Tony had to suppress a shiver; for some reason he found he believed what she said.

“Still, sorry about that,” he remarked, trying to keep equally calm and friendly.  “Is there any way we can make it up to you?  My friend and I were going to head back into the city.  Looks like you were out walking; we could give you a ride somewhere to make up for it, if you’re heading any place in particular?”

The woman’s eyes slipped from him to Anthea for a moment and then back again.

“Thanks, but there’s no need for me to impose.  I’ll be fine.”

Once more there was that calm confidence behind the stranger’s words, eerie and true all at once.  Tony glanced at Anthea and they exchanged a look, unsure how to respond to such a claim.  Luckily the teen’s upbringing saved the moment as she cleared her throat and leaned forward to catch the woman’s eye.

“Sorry, we’re not trying to be rude.  I’m Anthea Beauregard and this is Anthony Smith.  It’s nice to make your acquaintance even considering the circumstances, Miss…”

“Galatea,” the woman supplied after a pause, something in her smile going to soft as she answered the younger girl.  “It’s nice to meet you too, Anthony, Anthea.”

He quickly waved a hand again.  “Just call me Tony.  All my friends do.  It’s easier.”

Galatea appeared to consider this for a second before she raised an eyebrow, smirking.

“I don’t really have many friends, but if nicknames are preferred,” she chuckled, “then I suppose you two may call me… Téa.”

“Ooh, I like Téa!  It sounds elegant!” Anthea gasped, looking excited.  Perhaps the shock of the whole situation had worn off more quickly for her than for Tony.  Certainly it seemed the two females were alright with one another.

“Is there a nickname I can call you?” Galatea asked very calmly.  Tony wondered if she was always this cool and laid-back; it seemed to just come naturally to her, and he was mildly jealous of her for it in that moment.

“Well, Tony calls me Taz…” Anthea answered, voice trailing off slightly with a shrug.

“Well, Tony and Taz,” Galatea said, putting the sort of emphasis on the nicknames most people did when testing a name out.  “I appreciate the offer for a ride, but I’ll pass.  But you’re a little off-track, aren’t you?”

She gave a small gesture to her left, and the two jumped as they saw the nose of the SUV was barely half a dozen feet from a large pine tree.

“Oh geez!” Tony yelped, leaning back in his seat.  Talk about cutting it close!  He could have wrecked if the brakes hadn’t kicked in when they did!

“Here,” Galatea continued.  “Let me… give you a hand.”

She moved away from the window, out of view again—

—and the Hummer became airborne.

They rose high into the air without warning and Anthea let out a ragged gasp as a wordless yell escaped Tony.  They wobbled precariously and then the vehicle spun slowly.  In a few more heart-stopping moments, they were returned to the road with small tremors that rocked the car from side to side.  The nose of the SUV dipped and the front tires touched down on the pavement with surprising gentleness.  The back tires came down a little less easy and the two passengers jostled and bounced in their seats.  Tony’s heart hammered as he stared out the windshield without actually seeing what was there.

_What in God’s name just happened?!_

He was shaking worse than before and his grasp on the steering wheel had gone white-knuckled once more.  To his side Anthea gave a small whimper and there were faint squeaking sounds where she gripped at the armrests.

“Taz, you alright?” he managed to ask.

“I feel like we just lived through a scene out of _Jurassic Park_ …” she answered.  Her voice was quavering with suppressed alarm and if he had been able to, he would have hugged her and tried to calm her down.  As it was, he was on the verge of panicking.  Half-formed questions raced through his mind but as Galatea reappeared at his open window, he found he couldn’t voice any of them.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding all-too amused by their reactions.  “Should I have mentioned I’m not exactly human?”

“Might’ve been a good idea,” he replied, his voice quite higher than normal.  She smiled at that and for the first time, Tony felt there might have been something slightly cruel hiding in her expression.  Anthea gave another squeak to his side and they both turned to regard her.

“Wha-what are you, then?” she asked timidly.

There was a slight pause before Galatea replied, “Kryptonian.”

Tony turned to face her so fast he felt a vertebra in his neck crick.  A Kryptonian?!

_That must be why she said she would have been fine,_ a part of his brain supplied.   _If I’d hit her, she’d have barely blinked!  Anthea and I would_ still _have been worse off!_

He found he was giving her another long look over and some other part of his brain added most unhelpfully that Kryptonians as a whole seemed to be _very_ well-formed people.  Unfortunately his line of thinking had to be rather obvious, given Galatea smirked at him in that same moment and leaned forward intentionally.

“See anything you like?” she asked playfully, but before he could do more than stutter incoherently in response, she turned and stared in Anthea’s direction.  “That can’s going to bust.”

The teenager jumped and as Tony watched, she lowered her window and snatched up a can of soda he hadn’t noticed was in the cupholder.

“You brought your grape soda?” he asked in surprise.

“Y-yeah,” she replied absently as she held the can out of the window and popped the tab on it.  As predicted the soda exploded spectacularly, gushing out of the can and frothing over the side.  Anthea yelped, the can slipping from her fingers, and suddenly the Kryptonian woman was on her side of the car, nimbly catching the beverage with a curious expression.  Without a word she brought the can to her mouth and took a sip, preventing the soda from frothing any further.  After a moment she lowered the drink, pulling a face.

“Not very good, is it?” she remarked, her tone shockingly cold and bitter.

_Nobody made you drink it._ Tony thought in irritation, fighting to keep a neutral face.  A second glance brought to his attention she had removed her gloves prior to catching the can of soda, probably to avoid staining them.  While Leslie and Steven would undoubtedly have approved of such a fashion-conscious move, Tony found something about it only served to further prickle his growing annoyance.  What was _with_ this chick anyhow?  Kryptonian or not, she was giving off mixed vibes and he was feeling highly uneasy about it.

“It’s not my favorite,” Anthea admitted self-consciously.  “But I do like it.”

The older woman appeared to ponder this for a moment, then thrust the can back to the teenager with a bored expression.

“I have to be going,” she said, her tone flat.  Anthea gingerly took her soda back as Galatea’s gaze shifted to Tony again and she smiled.

“Nice meeting you two,” she remarked.  “I’ll see you around.”

The promise behind her words gave him a shiver, and as they watched she shot into the night sky like a bottle rocket.  In seconds she had vanished from sight, and the two were left staring in muted confusion.  After a few moments Anthea found her voice again.

“We’re not going to tell anyone about this, are we?”

It wasn’t a question so much as she was looking for him to agree to a plan of silence.  He gave her a small nod of confirmation.

“Heck no we aren’t, not if we can avoid it for as long as possible.  What happens during a Hummer ride stays _in_ the Hummer.”

“Good, because my parents would _freak_ if they found out, and in more ways than one,” she said with a sigh, and after a momentary pause she added, “I think she thought you were cute, Tony.  She definitely acted interested in you.”

He shuddered.  “For the love of all that is sacred, Taz, please don’t joke about a Kryptonian crushing on me.  I’d prefer to live to see thirty.”


	2. This Deadly Child Of Mine

The upswing of the jarring encounter with a Kryptonian didn’t hit Tony until the next day.  He was still nervous and completely on edge from the experience, and had taken to trying to find and round up all of his hockey sticks.  Apart from the one he kept in the back of his Hummer he had managed to find three more.  Somewhere in the back of his mind his thoughts kept regarding the effort as totally pointless and ineffective against a woman who could literally level small mountains with a right hook, but it was one of the only things keeping him relatively calm.  He had the three sticks laid out on his bedroom floor side-by-side and was trying to decide which to give to Anthea when he received some unexpected, but welcome, company.

“So what’s up with the hockey sticks?”

He jumped, then sighed with relief as Leslie walked up to his side, observing the equipment with raised brows.

“Geez kiddo!  Don’t scare me like that!” he exhaled, sitting on the floor and slouching forward.

“Wait, what?” Leslie tossed him a skeptical look.  “Like, seriously?  I freaked you out just now?”

“You didn’t really freak me out…” he said slowly.  “I was more startled than anything.”  With a slight flicker of irritation he added, “You could have knocked, you know.  I always knock before I come into _your_ room.”

“Whoa!  Calm down, Lieutenant Jock-Strap!” Leslie said with a small chuckle.  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this on edge before.  You okay?”

He didn’t answer but shrugged noncommittally as he fiddled with the positioning of the hockey sticks.  Leslie didn’t pry but after a moment she carefully sat down next to him and fixed her brother with a worried expression.

“Listen Tony, um…” she began a little awkwardly, drawing her knees up to her chest and hugging them.  A few moments of silence passed between them as she struggled with what to say.  But finally she spoke again.  “I just… wanted to apologize for the way I’ve been shutting you out since… you know.  I know you didn’t mean for that to happen.”

His mind was still so preoccupied with anxiety over the Kryptonian woman that it took Tony a good moment to realize what it was his younger sister was referring to.

“Huh?  Oh!  Oh, right.  Yeah, sorry about that,” he mumbled, scratching the back of his neck inelegantly.

“It’s okay,” Leslie said reassuringly, shaking her head in a dismissive manner.  “I wasn’t really being fair to you about it.  So I wanted to make amends.  Are we okay, you and me?”

“Yeah, we’re chill,” he replied, turning to offer her a smile and ruffling her platinum-blonde hair.  She grinned and whatever tension there may have been between the siblings melted away.  Tony felt relieved; his guilty conscience was eased of what had happened, and now things between them could go back to normal.  Leslie glanced away, her gaze returning to the hockey sticks.

“So why do you have all these out?  You haven’t pulled out any of your hockey stuff in ages.  Did the Gotham Blades manager call you? Are you going to join the team again?” she asked, giving him a quizzical look.

“No, nothing like that,” he replied, shaking his head.  “It’s… I’m not really sure how to explain it, squirt.  It’s weird and kind of complicated.  Besides I gave my word that right now I’m not going to talk about what happened.”

She raised her eyebrows.  “You gave your word?”

“Yeah, to Anthea,” he replied, and when her brows rose higher he added, “Don’t… don’t go bugging her about it, okay Les?  We’ll probably tell you eventually but right now we’ve both promised not to say anything to either of our families.  And I don’t want to make a mistake and be backed into a corner and betray the trust of another sister.”

He half-wondered if she would take offense to that last remark, but Leslie only smiled in approval.

“Oh alright.  Good call, Tony.”

~

Working for Cadmus was a tiresome, demanding job.  Every minute of every day you had to be ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice and focus on one thing like it was a matter of national security.  With General Wade Eiling among the top tier, that happened rather often.  And with Amanda Waller as head of operations, her tension and paranoia was infectious.  Really there was never a true moment’s rest when you stopped to think on the matter.  You didn’t _work_ for Cadmus; you sold your soul, your life, and every second of your time to Cadmus.

Professor Emil Hamilton hated that, and on occasion he found he regretted ever signing on with them.  This turned into one such occasion without warning.

“Hammiillltoooonnn!”

He looked up from his microscope, holding back a noise of exasperation.  Typically he and Wade Eiling were on civil terms with each other… for the most part.  The two men didn’t see eye-to-eye whatsoever but they had reached a point of mutual tolerance for one another because they both worked for the same people.  Normally they were able to make this work… while Amanda Waller was looking.

“General, with all due respect, you are well aware I don’t appreciate you barging into my laboratory without contacting me previously,” he tried to say, but even as the first few words left his mouth he knew his attempts to say anything were pointless.

“Oh spare me your bitching and moaning, Emil!” Eiling growled as he took brisk, stomping strides through the lab.  “You know _damn_ well what I’m here about.  Don’t you give me any horseshit about contacting you beforehand, not when you _know_.”

“Incidentally,” Hamilton said coldly, his expression stony as he turned about and adjusted his glasses, “I  _don’t_ know what this is about.”

Eiling was up in his face in the blink of an eye, mustache bristling.  He was a man who was easily angered by small things and if the popping vein in his neck and the rising purple flush in his face were any indication, then he was in a royal, mounting temper about something.  To make matters worse, he started to lower his voice rather than raising it to a shout, which meant he was prepared to take the matter into his own hands if he had to.

“I’m talking about your little test-tube Kryptonian.”

Hamilton’s eyebrows shot up.

“Galatea?” he said in surprise.  “What about her?”

“You’re supposed to keep that  _freak_ under control!”

“She’s a person with her own thoughts and feelings, General,” he shot back.  “She’s going to have free will.”

“Well,” the other growled.  “That ‘free will’ resulted in that clone taking a little evening jaunt last night,  _without_ logging the times.”

The scientist’s eyebrows rose higher in shock.

“Impossible,” he said solidly, reassuring himself.  “She would have discussed anything with me first.”

Eiling folded his arms, glaring.  “You don’t believe me?” he said, the challenge all-too-evident in his tone.  “Well, if you’re so sure, then you’ll have no issue reviewing the security footage to  _prove_ that monster of yours is a good dog.”

Hamilton bristled but he didn’t dare back down.  The nerve of this bloodthirsty louse!  Galatea wasn’t a monster, and he was already fed up with the dehumanizing putdowns and slurs against her.  Nevermind the fact she wasn’t precisely human; it was still unacceptable.  And if he had to play along and dance to this tune in order to put a stop to it, then by God, Hamilton would do so.

“Very well, then,” he said stiffly, following the military man as they left the lab and headed toward a room several doors down the hall.  As they walked, a small seed of doubt began to take root in the scientist’s mind.  What if he was wrong?  What if Galatea _had_ left the facility last night unauthorized and unlogged?  But surely she wouldn’t, would she?  She knew she wasn’t supposed to; to venture outside without prior permission and risk being discovered would put _everything_ about Cadmus at risk.  And Amanda Waller did not appreciate having mishaps to clean up afterward and explain to the public eye of the media.

But hadn’t he himself just finished explaining to Eiling that Galatea wasn’t a puppet, that she had a will of her own?  Furthermore, an added complication of her accelerated growth meant that at times she was given to unusual impulses.  Hamilton wondered if perhaps these behaviors were a result of a lack of childhood and adolescence.  Perhaps she had had an innocent, child-like desire to explore, coupled with a teenage instinct to rebel against authority.  And then it hit him: he wasn’t just supervising a clone; he was practically raising a child.

_A child with a volatile temper and the power of a small god._ His mind supplied unhelpfully.

They marched into the security room and after a few gruff words with the on-duty guards, Eiling jerked his head at Hamilton for him to join them.  Reluctantly the scientist stepped forward as the footage was pulled up.

“Fast-forward to 1900 hours!” the general barked.  The guard complied and Hamilton watched with a rapidly sinking heart as the footage revealed Galatea slipping out of the east exit and away from the facility at seven o’clock.

“What do you have to say to  _that_ , doctor?” Eiling sneered.  Hamilton didn’t move, his eyes fixed on the screen as his brain tried to grapple with the fact that Galatea had left without permission or authorization.  Surely she knew better.  Surely she knew she couldn’t do so without consequences.  So what in the world could have possibly overtaken her to the point she would just leave like that?

_I need answers and Galatea needs to explain herself,_ he determined.   _And not to this trigger-happy menace either.  If he tries to interrogate her, one of them will likely end up killing the other._

The worst part was he wasn’t even sure which of the two would wind up dead.  Taking a deep breath, Hamilton squared his shoulders, clenched his fists and turned away, heading for the door.

“Hamilton!” Eiling barked.

“I’m going to go interrogate Galatea,” he said by way of explanation, not slowing his stride.  “And I’ll thank you to stay out of this,  _General_ .”

He shoved the door open, half-expecting Eiling to interfere, to stop him. The old warmonger disliked people defying his authority, after all.  But it never happened.  Hamilton exited the room and began to make his way toward Galatea’s training room unhindered.  It occurred to him the lack of resistance was probably something to worry about, but he would dwell on that later.  Right now he needed to discipline his child.

His path took him to the staff access elevator, cleverly concealed at the end of the hall where the restrooms were located.  It was referred to as the staff access elevator, but in truth the employees that served to solidify Cadmus’s public face did not have the means nor the authorization to use it.  As far as most of them knew, the building only had three upper floors.  And really, that was true: there were only three more floors above the ground level lobby.  But it just so happened that the facility also had over fifty basement  _sublevels_ , levels that only the “real” staff were aware of.

_Selective truths, as Waller would call it._ Hamilton mused to himself as he scanned his ID tags and stepped into the elevator, pressing the button for sublevel five. _After all, “public image” employees don’t need to know anything above their pay grade… and Cadmus doesn’t want any of its secrets being released to the world before we deem those secrets ready to be shared._

As the elevator descended sleekly into the underground, a thought came to the aging scientist and he winced.  Cadmus would go to just about any lengths to ensure their secrets stayed hidden, or that their involvement in unsavory “incidents” was covered up.  Often the company had no qualms about the methods utilized in obtaining that relative silence and obscurity, as long as they remained under the radar.  So what would happen if they tried to silence Galatea in order to prevent her existence from being known?

Hamilton cringed.

_She would_ not _take well to that.  It could get ugly._

Cadmus wanted a Kryptonian they could control.  But the scientist’s gut told him they wouldn’t be able to control Galatea forever.

The elevator doors slid open with a chime and he stepped into sublevel five.  Fluorescent lights enhanced the cool atmosphere of the austere corridor and caused him to pull his lab coat over himself a little more tightly.  Really, they could do to at least partially heat the basement floors!  Not everyone handled the cool environments well.  He quickened his pace, eager not to spend more time here than was absolutely necessary.  Luckily it was easy enough to get to the training room; he had been there multiple times before and the frosted glass doors were recognizable.

“Something wrong, doc?” Galatea asked her sly way as he pushed open one of the doors.  He glanced up and frowned.  She was at the opposite end of the room, which was long and wide, a small gym contained and crammed into this sublevel.  Doubtless she’d heard him coming down on the elevator.  No matter how many times he had it right in front of his face, Hamilton didn’t think he would ever get used to the immense range of Kryptonian senses.

“Galatea, we need to talk,” he began cautiously.  He watched as she repeatedly jabbed at a punching bag.  She had to be going easy, testing how much she could hold back and still hit hard, considering the bag hadn’t broken and burst all over the place.  She looked up at the sound of his voice, catching the punching bag and stopping it.  Something flickered in her blue-green eyes and she smiled.

“Uh-oh,” she intoned, not sounding worried in the least.  If anything that devil-may-care smile only widened.  “Are you here to punish me, doctor?”

Hamilton approached her with a sigh, adjusting his glasses and hoping his mustache wasn’t bristling.  She certainly wasn’t going to make this easy on him, was she?

_A teenager._  He groaned mentally, wishing he could pull and claw at his own face in frustration.   _I am raising a teenager.  God help me, we could be a sitcom._

“I’m afraid I  _have_ to lecture you,” he remarked, sitting down on a bench and folding his hands in his lap.  “And better me than anyone else.  You left the complex last night, unlogged and unauthorized.”

“Yeah?” she snorted almost derisively, scooping up a towel and a water bottle.  She opened the bottle and took a generous swallow before flippantly adding, “Tell me something I  _don’t_ know.”

He inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to think of a way to avoid feeding into it.  Really, was there _anything_ you could say to a teenage mind with authority issues that it _wouldn’t_ use as fuel for the fire somehow?

_The heck with it._

“At present I believe General Eiling and I are the only significant individuals who know about this, and he is not exactly relaxed about your… excursion,” he said carefully.

“General Eiling,” she sneered, scrunching her face.  “You can tell him to take his rusted, janked-up old shotgun and shove it up his — ”

“Galatea!”

“ _What_ ?”

“Where in the world did you  _hear_ that kind of language?”

For a moment her eyes widened a bit guiltily and she glanced around as though casting about for a response to give.

“Nowhere,” she finally said noncommittally.  He groaned and buried his face in his hands.

“Galatea,  please  focus on what I’m telling you.  You can’t do this again.  You can’t just go gallivanting about on your own unauthorized until Cadmus is ready to reveal more about your existence to the world,” he declared.

“And when will  _that_ be, doc?” she asked in steely tones, challenging him to lie to her.  He refused to rise to her baiting; it was anyone’s guess as to when — if ever — Cadmus chose to relinquish some of its secrets and let her go public.

“Just please promise me you won’t go out again without asking first,” he begged, unable to keep the plea from his voice.  She studied him tensely for a moment, a crocodile trying to decide whether the bird that had landed on her was worth snapping up or not.  She stayed quiet for a long time before looking away, a thoughtful expression on her face.  But when she opened her mouth to speak, it wasn’t about the discussion he was trying to have with her.

“We don’t have any grape soda,” she remarked.

“We — _what_ ?” Hamilton spluttered, thrown for a loop.   _This_ was out of left field.

“We don’t carry grape sod,.” Galatea repeated, gently swishing her water bottle.  “There are fifteen vending machines for just soda in this entire building and all the sublevels.  None of them carry grape soda.”

“Alright…” he said slowly. “And may I ask why that is important?”

She gave a light shrug.  “When I was out last night I got to try some.”

“And you liked it?” he prompted.  She gave a vigorous shake of her blonde head and annoyance prickled at the scientist.  “So why bring it up?”

“I tried something new while I was out,” she replied as though that made all the sense in the world.

“Look, this is all well and fine,  Téa,” he sighed, exasperated.  “I’m glad you got to try some grape soda even if you didn’t like it, but  _please_ listen to what I’m talking to you about.  I want you to promise me you won’t leave the facility unauthorized again.”

She frowned, her mouth twisting bitterly, but in the end she nodded.

“I promise,” she said quietly.  He gave a sigh of relief, getting to his feet again.

“Thank you, sweetheart.  I’m just concerned.  Don’t worry though; I’ll talk to Eiling and Waller.  We’ll get this sorted out.”

It was unfortunate that Hamilton didn’t share his “daughter’s” Kryptonian sense of hearing; otherwise he would have caught Galatea’s frustrated whisper as he exited the gym, rather than remaining blissfully unaware.

“You completely missed the point I wanted to make, Daddy.”

~

The inside of the run-down store was cool and dark, coming as a welcome relief from the stifling heat outside.  Still, it took a moment for the eyes to adjust to the change, and Anthea was left blinking for a few seconds, standing awkwardly just inside the door.  Dust had been kicked up when she’d walked in, and as it settled again she sneezed a bit.

“Hey,  _gesundheit_ !” a familiar voice called out as Anthea eased her way in, refraining from making a face.  Trust Natalie Finch to be the first one to open her mouth as usual.

“You should’ve gotten here sooner,” another voice said, cool and calm.  “We had some fries to share but Cass decided to wolf them all down like a greedy pig.”

Anthea’s eyes had only just found Mizuki Shinimaji where she was perched on a stool reading, when her attention was abruptly grabbed by Cassadi Krank, who spoke up with an indignant, “Hey, did  _not_ !  And I’m not a pig!”

Despite her resolve to remain placid, Anthea couldn’t prevent the corners of her mouth from turning down just slightly.  It was a struggle sometimes to think of those three as her friends, given it was difficult for her to really connect with them.  Mizuki often came across as cold and aloof even on a good day, and more than half the time she wound up being whisked away by one or both of her mentors.  Natalie was fun but tended to be somewhat crude in Anthea’s opinion, not to mention the cyborg-girl seemed to be perpetually stuck in “hyper-mode”.  Then there was Cass, who at least could be more calm and laid-back but was shy and often had difficulty socializing even with the rest of them, and so she was often glued to Nat at the hip.  Still, they were better than no friends at all, but given the choice, Anthea hesitated to hang out with just those three.  In fact she doubted all four of them would ever spend time together independently, if not for…

“Hey,” a fourth voice murmured quietly nearby and Anthea immediately turned to the speaker, moving to join her.

“Hey, Codi,” she responded, sitting down next to the taller girl and setting her messenger bag down.  “Sorry I’m late.”

Codi Bishop was a tall, whipcord-thin girl with thick curtains of black hair that accentuated pale skin.  She was the oldest of the five girls and the closest thing they had to a ringleader.  She was also perhaps Anthea’s best friend.

“Don’t worry about it,” Codi murmured, not looking up.  She was lounging somewhat gloomily in one of the beanbags Cass had brought in, stroking something in her lap.  On the urge for a closer inspection, Anthea leaned in for a better look and two green eyes in a tiny, fuzzy face blinked up at her.

“Oh!” she exclaimed.  “A kitten!”

The ghost of a smile flickered briefly across Codi’s pallid countenance as she continued petting the kitten.  “Her name is Tenny,” she said fondly.

“Can I hold her?” Anthea whispered, trying to contain her excitement, but a second later she let out a happy squeak as her friend gently placed the kitten into her hands.  “Oh, she’s so cute!”

The kitten looked up at her, giving Anthea the distinct impression she was being smiled at in Cat.  A strange sense of contentment stole over the young heiress and she began petting the tiny animal, staying close to Codi in the event she asked for her pet back.

“Found her last week,” Codi explained.  “I was walking from—” she paused as though reconsidering what she was about to say, then continued, “Well, I was walking down a neighborhood street when I found her.  Or she found me I guess you could say.  Started following me, so I just picked her up and haven’t been able to part with her, I guess.”

Anthea looked up, furrowing her brow.

“You aren’t worried she might already belong to someone?” she asked, stealing a quick glance down.  The kitten looked healthy and well-fed, with very soft, silky fur.  Chances that this kitten was completely a stray seemed a bit unlikely.

“No,” Codi said quickly, a bit of a tense edge to her voice.  After a moment she seemed to realize she sounded defensive and added, “Besides, she doesn’t have a collar and tags, or a microchip.  I checked; Nygma and Kachadorian helped to double-check.”

Anthea had to stop herself from making a remark at that.  Nygma of course was Codi’s “boss”, the Riddler.  He had taken the tall teen under his wing and given her the moniker “Mystery” shortly before Anthea and the other girls had made Codi’s acquaintance.  Kachadorian of course was the rather irksome Kwiz Kid, Codi’s rival as a Riddler understudy who had somehow worked his way into an annoying brother role in her life.  Anthea had the strong suspicion that even if Tenny the kitten had had a microchip, disabling it would have been a cakewalk for any of the three of them.

“Y’know, there’s something funky about that cat,” Natalie piped up, and Anthea glanced over in time to see Nat’s cybernetic eye click a bit erratically.  “She gives off a weird heat signature in the infrared.”

Anthea looked at the kitten again.  She wasn’t sure what her friend meant.  Tenny felt like any kitten, just a warm, sweet little ball of fluff.

“Fantasia says most cats are guardians of secrets and spiritual gateways,” Mizuki added almost absent-mindedly.  “Maybe that’s why Tenny seems so mysterious.”

“Oh, nice choice of words,” Cass muttered sarcastically under her breath, whipping out her phone to start texting.  Codi however smiled and reached out to scratch Tenny behind her ears.  Anthea offered her friend an encouraging smile.

“Like draws like, I guess?” she prompted, to which the older girl shrugged and said something under her breath, not completely agreeing or disagreeing.  Anthea frowned again.  Codi had been unusually quiet and withdrawn in the past month.  She had always been a bit reserved about herself to begin with, but lately she had gotten quiet to the point it was starting to get unnerving.  Anthea was getting worried and she had a theory as to what had caused this change, but she was anxious about prying.

_Tony was the same way._ She reminded herself.   _He didn’t want or try to pry, but he still wanted to give me a chance to vent to him.  It couldn’t hurt to offer Codi the same opportunity._

“Are you okay?” she mouthed, hoping none of the other girls were watching too closely.  Codi met her eyes and gave a barely-perceptible shake of her dark head, mouthing the words “tell you later”.  Anthea nodded, both worried and relieved.  She glanced down at Tenny again, wondering how to bridge the gap in the conversation.

_Galatea_ _._ She thought. She had thought about it earlier that morning.  Tony had rushed her home last night after the startling encounter, amid several apologies for returning her so quickly and only picking up drive-through coffee.  Anthea herself had been both rattled and intrigued, and had wanted to talk with the other girls about it.  If anyone had any good ideas on how to deal with the aftermath, it probably be Codi.  And as she watched, Tenny blinked at her and began to purr as though agreeing with the thought.

She relaxed and sighed.

“So…” she began tentatively, “None of you breathe a word.  Tony and I promised not to tell our families but I don’t think he’ll mind if I talk to you girls, he’s usually pretty chill about that.  But last night when I was stuck at Dad’s stupid party, Tony tried to help me sneak out.”

Natalie collapsed into one of the other beanbags, giving an enthusiastic nod.  “I knew I liked that guy.”

“We didn’t get very far,” Anthea shrugged.  “We met a Kryptonian woman who picked up and moved Tony’s Hummer with her bare hands.”

An awed, tense silence fell over the room that served as their hide-out.  Codi’s green eyes glittered.

“A Kryptonian?” she echoed.


	3. Things We Don't Say

One thing you learned very quickly about humans was that they always talked about you behind your back.  Even if you _were_ human, they would talk about you behind your back.  If you _weren’t_ human, well then, they talked even more.

Galatea had been getting restless enough as it was when the group of Cadmus officials arrived with Professor Hamilton, looking resigned and tense.  So when they made it clear they wanted her to go take a look around the Washington, D.C. facility, she was hard-pressed to contain her relief.  She’d been waiting for a chance to get out of the stuffy, cramped building and go flying.  Naturally Hamilton and the white-collar entourage weren’t thrilled with her eagerness.

“Now, Galatea—” he began in the warning firmness of a parent, but he was quickly cut off as Amanda Waller stepped forward with a no-nonsense expression.

“You are being given authorization to make your way to the D.C. facility.  You will arrive and be escorted by security there.”

“I need no protection,” Galatea said irritably, crossing her arms.  Waller’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“The protection,” she went on icily, “is not for you.  Furthermore you are not to argue with or initiate any fights with anyone there.  You will be there under the pretense of checking up on how well the facility is running under its new supervision.  What you will in fact be doing is scanning the building and looking out for any suspicious activity from the Genomorphs there.”

“The Genomorphs?” she echoed curiously, surprised.  Though she hadn’t had much interaction with all types of Cadmus Genomorphs, Galatea had seen enough of the G-Gnomes to make the assessment they were all practically harmless compared to many of the other “projects” Cadmus dealt with on a regular basis.  Unable to get over the absurdity of the idea that she was being sent to check on them, she smirked.  “What’s wrong, Waller?  Can’t keep all your monkeys in their barrel?”

The heavyset woman’s eyes narrowed sharply.  “You think you’re being funny,” she said in a low, acidic tone.  “But I think you’ll find once you get there that this is no laughing matter.  Several of the Genomorphs have vanished without a trace.  Our guess is they’re hiding somewhere on one of the sublevels of the building.  You are going to go there and be Cadmus’s eyes where humans cannot see.”

Galatea frowned but before she could say anything in response one of the other Cadmus officials present turned and whispered to his nearest colleague.

“Can we even trust that she wouldn’t just kill all the Genomorphs because she felt like it?”

“That’s a very good point,” the other whispered back.  “Out of all the specimens for Project K.r., she’s probably the most volatile and destruction-prone.”

A spark of annoyance jumped to life in Galatea.  Just who did these imbeciles think they were talking about?  What gave them the bravado to talk like that about her when she was feet away from them?

_I could just burn them to ash right here and now,_ she thought almost absently.   _It would be easy.  These idiots would be toast before they ever knew what hit them._

She had to clamp down on that errant thought instantly.  Much as it would be gratifying to simply eliminate petty annoyances, it meant those  idiots would also die without learning their mistakes.  Besides, it would be much more satisfying to make them squirm.  Putting on a small, false smile that didn’t truly hide her dangerous irritation, she decided to address them.

“She’s also,” she said loudly in their direction, “the one person in this entire building with the most powerful hearing, gentlemen.”

_That_ did the trick.  The two of them froze, eyes huge as they slowly looked in her direction.  Her smile widened as she saw beads of sweat building on their foreheads.  A second’s concentrated listening revealed their heart rates spiked in fear.  Galatea crossed her arms smugly as Waller and a few others frowned at the whisperers.  Served them right for talking trash about her like she wasn’t even there.

“I’ll thank you both,” Waller’s tone was cold and sharp, “to keep your thoughts to yourselves from now on.”  She turned to regard Galatea again, her face a mask of neutrality.  “In and out.  Find out where our Genomorphs are vanishing to.  No damage, no fighting, and _don’t_ tell anyone _why_ you are there.  Don’t make me regret sending you, Galatea.”

The Kryptonian frowned.  The matriarch of Cadmus certainly knew how to take all the fun out of life.  Still she wasn’t able to argue or complain about the matter, and with some reluctance she gave a nod of acknowledgment.

“Good,” Waller said somewhat flatly as she turned away.  “Professor Hamilton can give you the details concerning how to get there.  You are excused.”

~

“Excellent work, Miss Beauregard.  Another A-plus.”

Anthea didn’t even bother to try forcing a grin as she took the assignment back, her eyes trailing listlessly over the marks on the paper.  “Thanks.”

There wasn’t much she’d liked about private school when she’d been attending, and truthfully being homeschooled by various private tutors wasn’t exactly a step up on the educational ladder.  At least when she had been attending Gotham Academy she had been able to leave the stifling confines of the old house for most of the day.  Even if her peers had left much to be desired, time away from Beauregard Manor was still time away from Beauregard Manor.  But thanks to her parents’ recent scare between Steph’s job at Arkham Asylum and the rumors of an anti-alien, anti-metahuman movement, Anthea had been pulled out Gotham Academy for her own safety and practically imprisoned in her home.  Frankly it left her with the opinion that her parents saw the matter as a chess move.

“Now miss, if you will please open—”

But she never got the chance to find out what textbook Mr. Danglars wanted her to read in, as one of the staff abruptly entered the room and cleared his throat loudly.

“Yes?” Anthea said as she looked up, ignoring a quiet scoff from her tutor.  She was rewarded by the fact the butler never even gave Danglars a glance, but had come there precisely to address her.

“Anthony Smith is here to see you, miss,” he intoned formally.  On cue, Tony stepped into the study and Anthea couldn’t help but smile warmly at the sight of his familiar face and smiling eyes.

“Hey kiddo.”

“Hi, Tony,” she replied brightly, setting down her schoolwork momentarily.  It was a surprise to get a visit from him unannounced, but it was a pleasant surprise.  “What’s up?”

He started to reply, but Mr. Danglars spoke up loudly before he could get a word in edgewise.

“Yes, Mr. Smith.  What occasion brings you around to interrupt our lesson plan?”

The withering look Tony shot the tutor wasn’t missed by Anthea but to her relief he didn’t let his irritation seep out past that.

“Just thought I’d drop by and see if Taz felt like having a quick run to get coffee and tea and such,” he replied with a casual shrug.  A somewhat embarrassed, sheepish grin broke out on his face as he added, “Last time I offered to escort her on a coffee break, our plans kind of got siderailed.”

She had to hold back a smile at that.  “Siderailed” by a Kryptonian almost felt like underplaying what had happened.  For a second her thoughts darkened with worry as she considered her conversation with Mystery and the other girls.  The mention of her and Tony’s encounter with Galatea had left them nervous and uneasy.  In fact, Mystery had made one ominous, cage-rattling observation Anthea hadn’t considered: according to official statements released, Krypton was destroyed years ago, and Superman and Supergirl were the only known survivors of their homeworld.  If Galatea really was a Kryptonian, then she was technically an unknown, and if she wasn’t…

_Then what is she?_ Anthea had wondered often since that conversation.  Something about the open-ended possibilities was both a little intriguing and frightening.

“Taz?  Everything okay?”

She jumped a bit and looked up at Tony.  “What?” she asked, perplexed.

“You were kind of zoning out there, space cadet,” he answered, looking at her a bit worriedly.

“I’m not a space cadet,” she replied with a bit of an affected pout.  “But in all seriousness I’m okay, Tony.  I kind of got lost for a second remembering what happened and why we weren’t able to go last time.”

His blue eyes glittered in understanding and he gave a barely perceptible nod.  But Mr. Danglars was not to be ignored and he glanced between the two of them suspiciously.

“What precisely happened, since you’re stuck on the topic?”

Tony gave a casual shrug.  “I had to swerve to avoid a collision with someone who was on the wrong side of the road,” he replied nonchalantly.  “Left us both really rattled, so I just drove us back and we didn’t go.”

To Anthea’s relief, her tutor seemed to relax at that explanation.  “Ahh, I understand.  My sympathies; I’ve been in moments like that before.  You ought to be commended for your defensive driving, Mr. Smith.  Most people don’t have such good reflex reactions.”

“Playing hockey for so many years kind of drills it into you,” Tony said, giving another casual shrug before turning to Anthea.  “You ready to head out?”

She nodded, getting to her feet and gathering up her messenger bag, eager to get away for a bit.  Still, there was one minor issue.  She glanced at her tutor just as he made a noise of affronted indignation.

“In the middle of her scheduled schooling hours?” he squawked.  “Where do you get off Mr. Smith, presuming you have the authority to just show up and take Miss Beauregard out gallivanting about?”

“We could consider it my lunch break,” Anthea interjected before Tony could fail to come up with a viable excuse.  Mr. Danglars looked at her, curling his thin upper lip back in a sneer.  She felt her skin crawl a bit at the sight as she stared back at him openly; it wasn’t often he made that face but whenever she saw it, it made her distinctly suspicious and uneasy in a way she couldn’t explain.  Something shifted out of the corner of her eye and in her peripheral vision she realized Tony was also frowning at Mr. Danglars.

_Maybe he’s picked up on the same vibe I have,_ she thought grimly, continuing to stare at her tutor as though demanding to know what his problem was.

“Your scheduled lunchtime is not for another…” Mr. Danglars paused to glance at his watch.  “Hour and twenty-five minutes.”

“We could bring you back a sandwich,” she added in, not about to be so easily put off.  Instantly his eyes widened, and she knew she’d struck a weak point.  Her tutor often grumbled about the limited lunch options available to him whenever he forgot to pack his own meals, and she had it from Stephanie that Danglars was apparently fond of a good reuben-and-swiss melt.

“Well…” he said a bit hesitantly.  Anthea glanced briefly to Tony, who caught her meaning and jumped in without hesitation.

“It’ll be our treat,” he said.  “We could also get you tea or coffee to go with it.”

Mr. Danglars’s mouth went from a slight frown to a full-on pout, but one only had to look in his eyes to see he was rapidly losing this battle.  Sighing, he finally threw his hands into the air in defeat.  “Alright, alright!  We can forget the schedule for today, I suppose.  I prefer a French vanilla latte, easy on the foam.”

Tony and Anthea shared a quick grin before the young man addressed the instructor.  “Thanks, Mr. Danglars.  This is really cool of you.  Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she won’t miss any schoolwork.  We can head back before two o’clock.”

“Yes,” he replied stiffly, a bit of a frosty edge to his demeanor as Anthea darted past him to leave the room.  “Please see that you do.  After all, I’m being _paid_ for my time, you know.”

She shot a look back over her shoulder, frowning, but he had already turned away to flip through his teaching materials.  Tony followed her out, an uncertain expression on his face.  Anthea caught his gaze and jerked a thumb back in Danglars’s direction, rolling her eyes and scoffing silently.  He gave a nod, speaking a bit louder than was necessary to sound casual.  “So where do you wanna go?  I figure we’ll get Potbelly’s on the way back for sandwich purposes, but the wide world of coffee is open before us, Taz.”

She made casual conversation with him as they headed out of the manor, partially just to pick a place, but mostly to throw off any suspicion.  However, once they were safely within the confines of Tony’s Hummer and she was buckling her seatbelt, Anthea said what was really on her mind.

“Can you _believe_ him?!  Ugh!  I don’t mind most of my tutors and instructors, but Mr. Danglars…” she grumbled, trailing off.  Tony pulled a face as he started the ignition.

“Yeah, not gonna lie, Taz.  Something feels off about him,” Tony muttered.  She exhaled slowly, somewhat relieved.  So it wasn’t just her.  She had briefly considered telling her _other_ mentor, Jonathan Crane, but given his desire to study her fears that would simply be throwing gasoline on a fire.  Really, the _last_ thing she wanted was for the Scarecrow to find out one of her schooling instructors put her on edge.

“Actually, this is kind of a decent segue into something I wanted to bring up,” Tony went on, tilting his head to indicate something in the backseat.  Puzzled, Anthea glanced behind her and saw a few different hockey sticks laying across the floor of the Hummer.

“Hockey sticks?  Are you going back to the Gotham Blades?”

“Huh?  No, I’m not.  Leslie thought the same thing, actually.  But that’s not why I brought those.  I wanted to give you one, Taz.”

She arched an eyebrow.  “You want to give me one of your hockey sticks?”

“Yeah,” he answered, looking grave as he focused on pulling out of the manor drive.  “After what happened last time, it got me thinking about how you don’t exactly have anything on hand to defend yourself with.”

She bit down on her lower lip and tried to avoid looking guilty.  Like the other girls in Mystery’s little troop, she too had received personal weapons and effects from her Rogue mentor.  And arguably her scythe or her twin sickles were a bit more formidable up close than most of the other girls’ personal effects.  Not of course, that anyone but Anthea and the girls knew that she even _had_ those weapons, let alone stashed them deep in her closet and her messenger bag.

“Oh, gee… um, thanks Tony.  It means a lot.  But I don’t know if anything might get past Dad’s hired security.”  She tried to pick her words carefully, but ultimately she still sounded awkward.  Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice.

“A Kryptonian might,” he muttered, looking anxious.  “At which point a hockey stick might be laughably useless, I know.  Heck, it’s kind of selfish I guess, but I’d feel better knowing you had something to defend yourself with, Anthea.”

“You think Galatea might hurt either of us?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t think she necessarily will,” he said slowly, as though trying to convince himself more than her.  “I mean, I hope she doesn’t.  Chances are good she might have forgotten about meeting us, but I don’t know.”

“She didn’t seem overly vicious or aggressive.  I mean sure she was kind of odd, but she’s a Kryptonian,” Anthea answered.  “She’s going to have quirks we find weird.”  After a moment she lowered her voice, worried.  “Are you scared, Ton’?”

“Of Galatea?” he asked, then gave a small nod.  “Yeah, just a little bit.  But not knowing what might happen in the future or if we’ll wind up hurt or worse?  That scares me more.”

As she watched him and listened, Anthea softened up a bit.  Tony had always been one of the biggest, most fearless and most gung-ho guys she’d ever known her entire life.  He and his sister Leslie had always had a take-the-bull-by-the-horns approach to life and even when she had been little, Anthea remembered Tony encouraging her to try out things she was nervous about.  To see him rattled and admitting to being afraid was unsettling but it was also powerful; none of the Smith siblings ever let anyone see them get so vulnerable.

“Okay,” she said finally, offering up a sympathetic smile.  “If it makes you feel better, I’ll take one.  Thanks, Tony.”

“Hey, what are big brothers for, right?” he said a bit sheepishly.  After a second he tossed her a mischievous smirk and added, “Hey, if nothing else, you can swing it at Andy Mallory’s head and say you were just practicing the next time he tries to hit on you.”

~

According to Hamilton’s reports, the facility had been rebuilt at least once since an incident some time ago when Dr. Desmond had imbibed something called the “Blockbuster formula”, but now Galatea could see no evidence of such an event ever having taken place.  The Washington, D.C. branch of Cadmus stood, peaceful and quiet as a light spring breeze wafted through the few trees nearby.  It was a small, unassuming building on the outside, with a very clinical, professional air to it.  She approached at a distance, crossing a quiet street from where she’d landed in an unmonitored alleyway.  The front of the building was completely out in the open, and she’d been ordered not to make a spectacle of her arrival.

_They act like I’m incapable of subtlety,_ she thought in irritation as she walked to the front of the building.  As she reached for the doors, she frowned.  Even from across the street, she’d seen the security detail that had been assigned to “escort” her, and it was pitiful.  Four guards dressed plainly, each with a concealed firearm and standard-issue tasers.  She could probably bench press them all with her feet while standing on her hands and _still_ be bored.  The thought of ignoring them felt more and more tempting with each passing second.  After all it wasn’t like they were going to make any difference if she felt like doing whatever she wanted.

_In and out.  Don’t cause any trouble._

She ground her teeth together.  Of course she couldn’t do just anything, not without consequence.  Inevitably word would get back to Waller and the others and then she’d probably have to sit through yet another lecture or something.  No, she might as well keep it reigned in and do this _chore_.  At least it got her out and about for a while.

“Miss,” the guards intoned as she entered, falling into place around her with forced casual strides.  She rolled her eyes, curling her upper lip at the display.  Still she made no objection as they followed her to find Dr. Spence to report in, and they made no real remarks as they walked.

She was escorted to the first sub-level of the building, unsurprised to find that the scientist in question she had been sent to meet was already moving in her direction as the elevator doors opened.  Spence was a woman of average build with dark skin and a frizzy high weave of hair, and she seemed to fidget nervously with her glasses as she approached.  She also, the Kryptonian woman realized, clutched a clipboard to her chest like it was a security blanket.

“Galatea?” she asked, dark eyes wide.

“Now what gave it away?” Galatea asked in a false pout, smirking slightly.  “Couldn’t possibly be the family _resemblance_.”

Dr. Spence scowled at that and Galatea quickly decided this woman had no sense of humor and they clearly couldn’t be friends.

“Listen, Galatea,” the geneticist began a bit acidly.  “I’m not thrilled that Waller sent you to evaluate and canvas our facility either.  But if we cooperate then we can move through this quickly and get it over with as painlessly as possible.”

“Is that a threat, Dr. Spence?” she asked coolly, folding her arms and cocking her head to the side.  “When I’m just being a good girl and doing as the higher-ups asked?”

The other woman’s eyes widened in shock and alarm.  “N-no… and there’s no need to go and mention any lack of enthusiasm on my part to Waller either, if you follow my meaning.”

_Oh, I follow your meaning alright,_ Galatea thought irritably as the security detail around her shifted, waiting for a possible blow-out.   _You’re a coward who can’t keep from getting a swelled head when there’s no one around to keep you in line.  And now the big kahuna herself has sent me, it’s got you chafing at the collar, doesn’t it?_

“If you’ll follow me, we can begin by taking you around and showing you how the last few months have been progressing for us.”  Spence motioned for them to follow her.  Galatea did so with a bit of a scowl.  The scientist opened her mouth to say something, but at that precise moment a strange figure approaching from another direction passed by them and Galatea turned to regard the individual.

He was undeniably a Genomorph, though perhaps the most human-like she would ever have expected to see.  He wore nondescript white clothing that couldn’t hide his blue skin and he stood about as tall as she did, perhaps taller if one counted the long horns that curved upward from his forehead.  As he passed Galatea and caught her eye, she noticed his large, goblin-like ears give a slight twitch.

“Ah, Dubbilex,” Spence addressed him, and he slowed to a halt.  “Would you care to join us as we give Galatea a quick tour of the facility?”

The Genomorph glanced from her to Dr. Spence and back again.  She wasn’t sure why, but Galatea had the strangest feeling those red eyes were almost weighing her, like she was being assessed for something.

“If my assistance is preferred, then I shall accompany you,” Dubbilex finally declared, falling into step with the rest of them, though Galatea noticed he stayed toward the back and out of sight.  A few minutes later as Spence launched into a monotone explanation, Galatea learned why this was.

_{I know why you are here, sister.}_

It took all of her restraint not to turn around in shock when the Genomorph’s voice spoke in her thoughts.  His words resonated with the powerful toll of a deep-voiced gong and it was hard not to believe that she herself simply hadn’t imagined his voice addressing her.

_{No, it is not your imagination,}_ Dubbilex went on.   _{This is how all Genomorphs communicate with one another.  I...hazard a guess the sensation of telepathic communication takes some getting used to.}_

_It’s kind of jarring,_ Galatea thought, hoping he was picking up her attempts to respond.  Perhaps this entire trip wouldn’t be so boring after all.  She wouldn’t have expected this.   _Does that mean Dr. Spence also knows the real reason Waller sent me?_

There was a slight sense of hesitation before she received an answer.   _{No.  She remains unaware.}_

_Then is there some special reason why you’re bringing this up?_

_{You have come here seeking the missing Genomorphs,}_ Dubbilex declared, getting right to the point.   _{I may be willing to help you, because of our connection.}_

_Connection?_ Galatea thought, confused as to what “connection” this creature thought he had with her.

_{My brothers and I are all part of the same weapons project for which you were created.  You, and all of the other Kryptonian clones Cadmus has given life to.}_

Her eyes widened.  So that was why he had called her “sister”!

_{Indeed,}_ he confirmed.   _{I know you will have your doubts, especially as you are the first truly successful “superclone” created by the efforts of Project K.r., but in many ways you are at your base a Genomorph.  You are our sister, perhaps our only sister.}_

_So, you’ll help me with Waller’s assignment?_

_{Perhaps,}_ he replied, and she sensed a bit of an edge to his psychic words this time.

_What does that mean?_ she thought in annoyance.   _Are you going to help me or not?_

_{That remains to be seen.  First, sister, I need to determine one crucial thing.}_

“And that is?” she asked out loud, pointing in a random direction under the pretense she was actually paying attention to whatever rambling was coming out of Spence’s mouth.  After a second, Dubbilex answered her again.

_{If I can trust you.}_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Danglars" was just supposed to be a placeholder name for Anthea's annoying tutor. And then somehow the name stuck, and THEN the guy made himself important, so I'm sorry, he's going to be around throughout the story.


	4. Revelations In Turn

Dubbilex’s vague proclamation left Galatea wondering, and the possible implications ate at her to the point she struggled to take in anything Doctor Spence said or did.  What did the G-Goblin mean, if he could trust her?  Did he think she was going to hurt any of them?  Even without the stunning claim that she was practically related to the Genomorphs, it wasn’t as if she felt irritated by them or consider them so underfoot that she would try to wipe them out.

_Or does he think I’ve been sent here to dispose of them?_

The thought occurred to her without warning.  In fact, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Dubbilex had been psychically nudging her thoughts in that direction, though she found she couldn't be annoyed at him for it if that were the case.  If Dubbilex’s hesitancy to assist her stemmed from the fear someone had sent her to eliminate the Genomorphs, then it was a valid fear.  “Disposing” of “defective materials” was almost routine for Cadmus.  If any sentient creations stepped too far out of line, there would be no trace of their existence by the following week.  Cadmus was good about that.

But then that brought her pondering back to the issue of the missing Genomorphs.  Why had Waller sent her to locate them?  True, their psychic abilities could be formidable if put to certain uses, but they had been created primarily as a genetic stepping stone.  What was more, they were all largely docile in nature.  At least, these were all things Galatea had been taught.

_{The things you have been taught are not incorrect, sister.}_  Dubbilex’s mental voice broke into her conscious stream of thoughts again after some silence.  Tones of gong-like resonance rang with both tense anxiety and subtle placation.  { _We Genomorphs were created in part as a genetic stepping stone in Cadmus’s research after the first failures of Project K.r.}_

That was right; he _had_ called her the first success of that particular project, hadn’t he?  What did he mean by that?  A peculiar realization crept upon her as she was wondering.  She had no idea where she truly came from or why.

“Galatea?  Are you listening?”

She had almost forgotten Dr. Spence, and as she looked at her again, the mousy little woman was glaring at her.  Nostrils flared at the Kryptonian’s blatant lack of respect for her position and authority that came with it.  If she thought a mere look would change anything for the better however, she was grasping at very thin straws indeed.  Unfazed, Galatea immediately asked the question that was on her mind.

“How was I made?”

The effect of these words was instantaneous and everyone nearby fell awkwardly silent.  Any annoyance Dr. Spence felt seemed to vanish as she processed the question.  Carefully removing her glasses to clean them, she averted her gaze to the floor.

“That is a question better suited for Dr. Hamilton—”

“I won’t get a word out of the doc if I tried asking him,” Galatea cut her off brusquely.  “I know he had a hand in my creation and I know I’m part of something Cadmus started called Project K.r.  But that’s all I know, and Hamilton will skirt around giving straightforward answers.  You’ll be more to the point since we’re strangers.”

Spence’s eyebrows lifted sharply at these words, not having anticipated this response.  Drawing in a breath, she replaced her glasses on the bridge of her nose as she addressed the other woman.  “Do you know know what the purpose behind Project K.r. is?”

“Let’s pretend I only have a few vague guesses,” Galatea answered, folding her arms.  “Enlighten me.”

“A handful of years ago or so, the world became aware of the existence of the man called Superman,” Spence began.  “It was only due to a few different interviews with Superman that we learned he is an alien from a long-gone planet he calls Krypton.  More details came to light over time and someone out there decided to try cloning Superman using samples acquired of his DNA.  The intent was that this clone would replace the original Superman in the event he ever began acting against the world and its best interests.  However, that clone was defective and flawed.  Nobody knows what happened to it, but we have reason to believe Bizarro is still somewhere out there.  It is simply a flawed tool, unfit to replace Superman.”

Galatea frowned slightly.  She knew about the Big Blue Do-Gooder, but this was the first she’d ever heard of a defective clone called Bizarro.  And given the way Spence kept referring to Bizarro as a tool, she didn’t like the direction this was taking.

“Naturally the enterprising individual behind that clone’s creation discontinued their attempts after such an embarrassing failure.”  Setting her papers on the nearest desk, the scientist grabbed a chair and seated herself in it as she continued to divulge the story.  “But they were ready to sell their research from the experiment to Cadmus, and we were more than willing to continue exploring the study of Kryptonian DNA.”

Galatea clenched her jaw, fighting to keep from letting her frown morph into a scowl.  An embarrassing failure?  Spence must have believed that in full, considering the repeated use of the words “it” and “tool”.  She didn’t value the life of the clone; she probably didn’t even see Bizarro as an individual.  A secondary thought occurred to Galatea as she watched and listened: Spence had seated herself but hadn’t bothered inviting Galatea to sit with her.

_She probably doesn’t place any value on me either,_ she thought.   _Not more than she would an automatic weapon, anyway._  Something about that ticked her off.  Venomous anger started building in Galatea’s stomach, but she continued listening anyway.

“Unfortunately, Kryptonian DNA has proven elusive and problematic.  We have hit multiple stumbling blocks in the process.  In fact, Project K.r. was officially moved to the back burner only shortly after you were created.”  Spence paused momentarily to look her up and down.  “Designation Kr.- S.G. 008-s023-00, named Galatea by Dr. Emil Hamilton.”

A repulsed shudder tried to make its way through Galatea’s spine and she fought it as best she could.  She had never heard her _number_ before.  Something about it was wrong and she could feel her skin crawling beneath her clothes.  At least the scientist didn’t appear to notice; she probably would have smirked at seeing Galatea unsettled.

“Your genetic make-up was taken from that of Supergirl, aged by a biological decade so you could have complete access to your Kryptonian abilities at their peak.  Cadmus intends you to replace Supergirl should she ever act in a way that threatens the American people, and considering what we have learned of her teenage impulsiveness and blatant lack of respect for authority…”

Galatea sneered out of reflex.  Supergirl.  She had known from the time of comprehension that she was cloned from that bratty little tart, and bringing up Supergirl in conversation never failed to annoy her.

“Until then,” Spence finished, “you serve Cadmus as we see best fit.”  She gave Galatea a challenging look.  “Any further questions?”

She hesitated before answering, “Not really.”  There hadn’t been much Spence said she wasn’t already aware of.  And yet no further light was shed on the failures of Project K.r., and no mention was made of the Genomorphs either.  It was strange to feel let down about the matter.  But then, this place was cold, drab and gray, almost overwhelming with its efficient dreariness.  Why should she have expected anything even a little more exciting in answer to her question?

_{It is possible Amanda Spence remains unaware of the further aspects concerning your creation,}_  Dubbilex suggested in response to her sulky thoughts.  { _Or perhaps she knows and considers it pointless to supply you with further knowledge.}_

_Yeah, or you could be lying to get me on your side._

_{A very valid and very human suspicion, I shall grant you that,}_  he said generously.  { _But I have not lied to you yet my sister, and I have no reason to.}_

“Well then,” Spence remarked, rising from her chair, “if you don’t mind excusing me for a short while, I have a few things I need to attend to, and then we can resume our tour of the facility.”

With that she turned and trotted off, the spring in her way of lifting her feet betraying the desire to be away from the Kryptonian as soon as possible.  Sulking moodily, Galatea gave a small stomp and the surrounding furniture shook, momentarily airborne.  Her arm shot out and she seized one of the chairs by its back, pulling it toward her and promptly seating herself on it.  The motions happened so quickly it startled the surrounding security officers, who were barely able to keep up enough to process what she’d done.

“You could damage the floor doing that!” one of them said with a bit of an indignant squawk.  She turned and looked at him. Unremarkable with forgettable features, he paled beneath her gaze.

“I could damage _you_ ,” she retorted, and all of them cautiously backed up a short distance.

“Is that a threat?” another one demanded.  Amazing what bravado they could muster when they remembered they were armed, nevermind the fact guns were rendered useless against Kryptonians.  Galatea rolled her eyes and gave a snort.

“What, are you trained to assume everyone’s out to get you?”  Without waiting for an answer, she went on.  “I said that I _could_ , not that I was definitely going to.  Though if you keep goading me and acting like I’m some berserk freak, I’m gonna be sorely tempted to change my mind about that.”

“You’re… you’re not allowed,” the first one declared almost defiantly, though the quaver in his voice gave away his uncertainty.  “The higher-ups would never allow it.”

She raised her eyebrows at him.  He didn’t appear to be registering how little that mattered.  She could _still_ put him in a full-body cast before Waller ordered her wrist slapped.

_{You’re not incorrect in that regard,}_  Dubbilex remarked across the psychic link without even the slightest hint of amusement in his thoughts.  Abruptly he spoke aloud.  “Perhaps it would serve best to give everyone some breathing space.  Hostility helps no one.”

Galatea could tell he was trying to diffuse the situation and prevent a disaster from occurring, but this backfired.  The G-Goblin only succeeded in making himself the target of the escort’s collective suspicion.  They all looked to him, open malevolence overtaking the fear and apprehension they had regarded her with.

“Watch it, Genomorph,” one of them spat viciously.  “Don’t forget your place.  And don’t think you’re irreplaceable either.”

“You step out of line one more time…” another said, letting the unfinished threat hang ominously in the air before his hand began to move toward his firearm.  Hurt shone in Dubbilex’s eyes as his gaze flicked between each member of the escort and he lifted his open hands slowly.  For a second he met Galatea’s eyes, but then he gave a slow nod of acknowledgment.

“Yes,” he murmured.  “Of course.  You’re absolutely right.”

An uneasy quiet began to descend as he turned and walked off, hands clasped behind his back and head held high.

_So what did he mean by that?_  She thought, trying not to watch Dubbilex’s progress too closely while the guards continued to hang around.   _What, did you get a bit too nosy?  Take too many cookies from the cookie jar?_  
  
For a long moment she got no response.  She began to wonder whether or not he would answer her question.  Just as she started to conclude he wasn’t, a single thought came her way.

_{I tried to start a rebellion.}_

She couldn’t stop herself from lifting her eyebrows high.   _A rebellion?  You?  You don’t seem like the type._  She watched as the G-Goblin approached a few of the other Genomorphs that were milling about doing odd jobs, and tried to imagine Dubblix standing on a soapbox, inciting them all to rebel.  It seemed a rather bizarre notion.

_{You shouldn’t always judge on a basis of appearance,}_  Dubbilex said.  { _I’m certain you don’t like being kept in confinement and having your life dictated by Cadmus any more than we do, my sister.}_

~

There was a storm brewing in the Smith household and it had Tony on edge.  Rare was the occurrence where either of the Smith parents truly seemed angry or upset, but there were always early warning signs and he could feel them building.  Leslie had recently mentioned being offered a job at a coffee-and-tea place, but had darted around giving too many details otherwise and instead had gotten Stephanie Beauregard to vouch for all of it.  While their parents had given hesitant approval, Tony’s gut told him that was hardly the end of the matter.  Leslie’s recent behavior had made Mom and Dad suspicious, and they were probably going to be watching her under a microscope for a while.

“Anthony, could I speak with you?”

The sound of his father’s voice put him more on edge than he already was.  Squaring his shoulders, he took in a deep breath and turned to look at his father.  He stood half a foot taller than Kensington Smith, but the use of Tony’s full first name made him feel like a child again, about to get into trouble without knowing why.

“Yeah?” he asked, trying not to let his uncertainty show.  His dad had a habit of sniffing out that sort of anxiety and ruthlessly seizing any opportunity to exploit it.

“Listen son, given your sister’s recent,” he paused several seconds, taking care to frown and twist the next word in such a way to make it sound filthy, “ _adventures_ in socializing, your mother and I have some reservations about her starting a part-time job.”

Tony nodded carefully.   _Cue shock,_ he thought to himself.  He had the sinking feeling he knew what was coming next.  “Right,” he said as affably as he could manage.

“We don’t know anything about this place, wherever it is she was offered this part-time position.  If you could possibly take the time to go and scope the place out, tell us what you think…?”  When an answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, he added, “Your mother and I would _greatly_ appreciate it.”

Tony knew that voice.  That was the parental “leaning” voice; it meant the person being addressed wasn’t being outright ordered to do something, but that the parent was going to “heavily encourage” them to do it, with an Or Else implied in there somewhere.  His dad wasn’t going to force him to check out his sister’s new job, but he was going to lean on Tony to think about it, so to speak.  Personally Tony thought there was no need for the “leaning”.  Better that he went to see what Leslie’s new job was like than risking Steven doing so.  Steven would be uncharitable about anything he found that seemed even remotely suspicious.

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed with another nod.  “Can’t be too careful, I guess, what with her talking to a supervillain lately.”

Kensington smiled, patting his son’s shoulder in approval.  “That’s my boy.  I think she’s heading out today, so why don’t you just subtly tag along?”

Tony grimaced and tried to turn it into a smile.  “Sure,” he said through gritted teeth.  What, did his parents think his sister _wouldn’t_ notice if he was following her?  Questioning his parents’ collective intelligence and whether or not Leslie would lead him on a wild goose chase, he nonetheless went to the garage to go wait in the Hummer.

It didn’t feel right, spying on his own sister.  Sure he was concerned, and he certainly didn’t approve of that Copperhead guy one bit.  But consorting with a criminal and being offered a part-time job were two totally separate things.  Just because she liked to talk with a convicted felon didn’t mean she was working _with_ one or anything.  Besides, Cheryl and Kensington Smith encouraged the idea of part-time jobs for as long as Tony could remember.  Didn’t it set off conflicting signals to then spy on Leslie if she got a job?

Sharp knocking on his driver’s side window jolted Tony out of his wondering and when he looked to see who was trying to get his attention, his stomach churned with guilt.  Leslie planted her hands on her hips, lifting a slender brow at him.  Heaving a weighty exhale, he lowered the window and looked at her.  The few seconds of silence were brief but so charged with tension it made his stomach turn even worse.  Finally Leslie opened her mouth to speak, and it looked like she was picking her words carefully.

“Any special reason you’re just sitting around in your mobile man cave, watching the open garage door?” she asked.

“It is _not_ a man cave!” he protested indignantly.  When she raised her eyebrow higher, he grimaced and leaned forward to rest his forehead against the top of the steering wheel.  “Okay, okay… You were probably going to figure it out anyway.  Dad asked me to follow you to this new job of yours and see what it was, so I could tell him and Mom.”

“Yeah, I had a feeling that was it,” Leslie remarked.  “I’ve got nothing to hide; it’s just a part-time job at a little cafe.  Mind giving me a ride there if you’re going to be playing covert ops?”

Tony’s mouth fell open as he gaped at his sister, astonished at her casual acceptance of the matter.  After the last little family shouting match and his violation of her trust— regardless of how unintentional it had been —he was expecting indignance and righteous anger.  Still, who was he to protest?  It made things easier for him and if she had nothing to hide, the least he could do as an older brother was give her a lift.  Shutting his mouth, he unlocked the doors and Leslie darted around to the passenger side to climb in.

“Thanks, Ton’,” she said, brightening a bit as she shut the door and strapped her seatbelt.  “I need to look up bus routes still, but I’m hoping to get them figured out by the end of the day so I don’t need to constantly bum rides or borrow cars.”

“You going to save up to buy your own car?” he asked dryly, half-joking as he turned the keys in the ignition.  The heavy vehicle roared to life as he eased out into the long drive, preparing to take the side exit.

“Maybe,” Leslie said noncommittally, though she deliberately avoided looking right at him as she said it.

“Just ‘maybe’?” he said, hitting a remote button to open the gate.

“Yeah well,” Leslie said, still not looking right at him and sounding just a bit too casual.  “There are other things I might want to save up for, you know.”

Tony responded with a hum, resisting the urge to pursue that potential line of conversation.  He had a feeling she wanted him to ask what else she could possibly want to save up money for and in truth he _was_ curious, but the less he actually knew, the better.  That way the chances of Steven or their parents actually wheedling anything out of him dropped drastically.  Instead he steered the conversation in the direction of where they were headed, and Leslie was happy to guide him as he drove.

~

Playing hooky was a strangely exhilarating feeling.  Once upon a time, Anthea never would have dreamed of skipping school on an impulse to get out and breathe a bit.  Of course, once upon a time she’d also never had a certain tutor in her life that monitored her every move like a walking, looming security camera.  But if there was one thing Codi and the girls were pros at, it was finding clever ways to slip past controlling adults.  Cassadi and Mizuki provided a distraction— though both ardently refused to divulge exactly what they had done —while Codi and Natalie helped Anthea to slip away, unnoticed by Mr. Danglars.  They were well away from the manor by the time one of the girls made a remark to her about it.

“Man,” Cass said in a loud exhale.  “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but your tutor is a friggin’ tightass.”

Anthea winced slightly beneath her hood.  It was hardly the language she was grimacing at, as most of the other girls swore to varying degrees; no, she didn’t care for anything that fueled the mental image of Mr. Danglars wearing tight shorts.  So far he never had, but it was a sight Anthea never wanted to see regardless.  She suppressed a disgusted shudder and nodded her consent.  “You’re absolutely not wrong about that.”

“ ‘My name is Anwir Danglars, young lady, not “old dude”,’ ” Cass muttered in a mocking, pompous tone.

“Wait, did you say his name is Anvil Dangler?” Natalie asked and then without waiting for an answer, she declared, “That is totally what I’m calling him from now on!”

Anthea almost choked holding back her laughter, and more to change the subject than anything else she turned to Codi.  “So, you ever going to take us to that one Chinese restaurant you always get take-out from?”

The taller girl’s stride slowed momentarily and the edges of her mouth tightened.  Instantly Anthea felt guilty for asking the question, getting the strong impression she had broached a very sensitive topic and wishing she could retract her words.  But it was little more than a momentary pause before Codi resumed her stride, holding her head high.

“Maybe one day,” she answered evasively.  “Maybe.  For right now though, I think you mentioned you wanted to pick up something before we headed toward the Old Gotham district?”

“Yeah, if that’s okay,” Anthea replied, relieved at the abrupt change of topic.  “Do any of you know where the Mad Tea House is?”

Codi nodded almost automatically without turning around and Mizuki gave a light shrug.  Cass and Natalie exchanged an odd look, putting their heads together briefly.

“Isn’t that the Mad Hatter’s place or something?” Nat asked warily, her tone making it clear she was uncertain about heading there.

“His fiancée, Miss Knightly runs it,” Anthea replied.  “We don’t have to stay there very long or anything.  I just wanted to pop in really quick to see if there was any new teas I wanted to pick up to try out.”

There were no objections to this course of action— as it was, chances were high they would stop by a few more places for various snacks —and they caught the nearest bus they could find to head there.  One quick bus switch later they arrived at the final stop, just a block’s walk away from their destination.  Natalie spotted the sign above the shop almost immediately and pointed it out, and Anthea wondered not for the first time if the blonde girl’s cybernetic implants gave her telescopic vision.

“Say, what kind of tea does Knightly sell in this shop anyway?” Nat asked as she started striding a few steps ahead.

“Since when did you drink tea?” Cass asked, voicing the same surprised question that had occurred to many of them.

Natalie shrugged.  “I wanted to see if there were any flavors I could send to Kimmy.”  There was a collective murmur of general understanding; Nat didn’t often talk about life in the H.I.V.E. Academy, but her friend Kimberly was almost always mentioned when she did.  Idly Anthea wondered if the rest of them were ever going to meet Natalie’s mysterious archer classmate, but she refrained from asking directly.  It had been an unspoken rule not to pry too deep into one another’s pasts in their little group.  After all, they were still getting used to one another, and that level of openness and trust came with time.

Her foot came down as she took a step and she was _there_ again.  She could feel the chill fingers of the bay wind digging into her face, silently whispering in an enticing voice to just take a few more steps.  Her ribs started to contract over her lungs and heart, trying to force the rest of her inherent self-preservation into action.  There was a stale, sour smell on the air beneath the asphyxiating layer of smog that belched and billowed out from the Chlorogene factory.  In the distance, she could hear buoys ringing out on the water.  Nausea threatened to overwhelm her as the vertigo set in, and she felt her feet twisting around each other as the world spun dizzily and she pitched forward.

“Whoa, hey!”

A strong hand gripped her shoulder and pulled her back roughly.  Anthea gasped for air, drawing in a sharp breath as the sidewalk suddenly appeared beneath her.  Or rather, the edge of the sidewalk at the corner crossing.

“Careful,” Codi’s voice was saying, the feeling of the taller girl’s long hands vanishing as her touch rapidly withdrew.  “You okay?”

Anthea blinked as she took in the sight of the crosswalk, which seemed vaguely alien and yet comfortingly familiar all at once.  She was still reeling with the realization she _wasn’t_ being mercilessly pulled along by a current beneath deceptively calm waves.  A sweat had broken out over her entire body, turning her skin clammy.  “I… uh, thanks.  I-I guess I wasn’t watching my step.”

“It’s a pretty steep step down, to be fair,” Cass remarked sympathetically as she walked up on Anthea’s left, nodding down at the crosswalk.  The redheaded girl swallowed, her throat uncomfortably dry.  Cassadi didn’t know just how ironic her remark sounded in Anthea’s ears.

_Maybe one day I’ll tell them,_ she thought, though even in her head it sounded evasive and not at all like she was committed to the task of sharing her darkest secret with anyone.   _Maybe._

But trust and openness had to come first.  And right now all she wanted was to pick up some tea.  Hopefully it would help ease her nerves for the rest of the afternoon.  Carefully she took the step down and started across with the other girls.  Looking up she saw Natalie had already sprinted ahead to look in the tea shop window, apparently engrossed in whatever had caught her attention.  As they drew nearer, the cyborg frowned and spoke up.

“Hey uh, Anthea?” she asked, tossing a furtive glance her way, mismatched cybernetic and human eyes flicking to and fro.  “Didn’t you say that Tony Smith guy you know is a hunky ging’ who used to play for the Gotham Blades?”

Anthea gave a small jump at the question, completely thrown for a loop.  “ _‘Hunky’?_ ” she repeated incredulously.  Something in her stomach was turning icy cold with an uneasy apprehension, but she darted to her friend’s side to glance into the semi-frosted display window.  Beyond the pastries, tea tins, tea cups, and carafes for sale loomed a practical re-invention of Carroll’s mad tea party in a single large dining room, a bright place with its own quirky charm.  Anthea recognized the woman behind the front counter on sight; Miss Knightly’s friendly face had quickly become a familiar and welcome constant to the youngest Beauregard heir in recent months.  Engaged in conversation with Miss Knightly, her back to the window, was Leslie Smith.  Anthea didn’t need to see the youngest Smith’s face; she could recognize that shock of white-blonde hair and bubblegum-pink highlights in even the thickest crowd.  And hovering nearby, his blue-eyed gaze wandering all over the shop’s interior uneasily, was an all-too-familiar ginger-haired, freckled individual wearing an old Blades team jacket.  Anthea went rigid, knowing inevitably he would see them and then the questions would start.

_So much for my nerves._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If ever there were an example of my canon-blending to the max, it's probably evident in this chapter.


End file.
